The Art of Dazzling
by licensedtolive
Summary: She knows Chuck isn't good enough for her. And if there's a golden rule about the Waldorfs, it's that they never settle for second best.
1. Chapter 1

A/N Watching all those Blair/Edward videos on Youtube got me hooked on this couple so I'm exploring this fandom a little bit. I think Blair makes a better Bella than Bella, because honestly I dislike Bella with a passion I think she's too much of a Mary-Sue. Besides, Blair is so much more kickass and I love her to bits. Please review and give criticism, constructive criticism, flames, whatever, I'm gifted with a thick skin so I might as well put it to use.

I don't know if I should keep this as a simple one-shot, flirting with the idea of what _might_ happen or just go through with the whole thing. Anyway, I don't own Twilight or Gossip Girl, sadly enough. Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter One

The tables are set in designer white satin, with laces hanging down slightly off the polished wooden table that cost more than the value of the Humphrey possessions combined. An unlit crystal chandelier hangs overhead, lending a timelessly elegant, Audrey Hepburn look. Candles flickered in a soundless dance, alluring flickers casting brief auburn-gold illumination against the dark red lacy curtains of the room.

Blair smiles to herself, a mysterious smile that curled around the edges of her lips and lifted her mouth, completing the Audrey Hepburn image (or so she thinks to herself). Red six-inch Manolos and a white, vintage starch dress, tights and a black bowtie she knows Chuck loves to undo.

_A year_, she thinks, mulling the words in her head as she swishes the red wine in her glass. _So much has changed in a year_.

Nate and Cabbage Patch's little Brooklynite sidekick were officially together now, backpacking across Europe to God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what. Blair felt a brief flash of envy. All her life, she had been Nate's girlfriend, the one everyone thought would be The One, who would wear the Vanderbilt family ring and bring forth a brood of the next generation of Upper East Siders...but still. _Backpacking_. How horribly _troglodyte_ of them. Blair shuddered in distaste. The little Sidekick was dragging her Brooklynite claws into Nate somehow. Blair would find out what, and she would teach her a much-needed lesson when they came back.

No one messed with something of Blair's - no matter how long ago it had been out of her reach.

_Serena_. Blair purses her perfectly-glossed lips, her face cold as she feels the familiar rage rise up in her. No, today was a happy anniversary celebrating her and Chuck. Serena would not spoil it for her. She wouldn't. Blair wouldn't let her. Not this time. She'd had enough of Serena and her constant unpredictable appearances and disappearances, as if she was some star actress in the play of her life flitting here and there, constantly disappearing and reappearing, as though she already knew when and where her scenes were and where to go. Like she already had her _life_ planned out straight to the curtain call.

Blair slams her glass on the table, and the liquid sloshes out, spraying the table in globules of Pinot Noir. Blair stands up, nearly knocking the chair over, and careful not to trip over her Audrey Hepburn dress and dials his number.

_Where R u?_

No reply. Blair's patience is wearing thin. She utters a long string of curses she had heard Chuck muttering before (she'd remembered it only because it was rather ... creative), and grabs her phone again.

* * *

William Orson is having a nice day as the personal secretary of the one Mr. Chuck Bass, the owner of Bass. Industries and one of the richest men in the world. All those people who wanted, needed to see him have to first pass through security, and then to the receptionist, and to his department, before going to his _own personal _secretary, and then finally to him.

His job gives him ample free time and the pay is no miser's sum either – with quite a few benefits.

He grins at the curvaceous woman waiting for him, which she returns sexily. He feels himself tighten as he grabbed her, inhaling her scent as she kissed him soundly. It was purely at times like this when he wonders why so few had bothered to apply for the job.

Just then, his phone rings. He is about to ignore it, when the only instructions from the boss himself runs through his mind. _If someone calls you, answer it. It doesn't matter where you are – bathing, clubbing, in the midst of an orgasm – you answer it. _Truth be told, he was rather scared of Chuck Bass.

William pulled away cursing – _of all times!_ – and giving the woman an apologetic look, to which she huffs and storms away, he answers the phone.

"Where the _hell_ is he?" a female voice demands from the other end. William sighed. It was precisely moments like these which answers his question as to why so few people had applied.

Blair Waldorf.

Mr Bass's long-time girlfriend, and if the office gossip were to be trusted, soon-to-be fiancée. He had met her once, and had been momentarily stunned by her beauty – smooth, porcelain skin and large dark doe eyes and perfect glossy chocolate curls left the impression she was a living doll. Of course, he had recovered swiftly and closed his mouth as soon as she had opened hers. The woman was a Class-A bitch. Which meant, William had learnt, the best kind of society wife there was.

"If you would be patient, Ms. Waldorf," he tries to explain as calmly as he could, "Mr Bass is still in a meeting and he says he's not to be disturbed."

A petulant pause. William can almost imagine her pouting on the other end. "But he's going to show?"

"Certainly. Perhaps half an hour at the most." William placates her, all the while thinking of the beautiful woman who had left him earlier. Maybe if he ran after her and explained...?

"Oh, alright," a very un-characteristic Blair Waldorf voice answers. She sounds defeated, given up. William was beginning to feel a little sorry for her when she barks, "And get me new table linen."

"But didn't I just give you one already?" There is a dangerous silence on the other end of the phone and he begins to feel very flustered as he realises his mistake. "I mean, Ms Blair – I mean, Waldorf – Ms. Waldorf – those table linen are – what I mean to say is, they are very expensive."

"_I don't care!"_ Blair Waldorf screeches into the phone. "Table linen, _now_. Everything has to be perfect. It has to be!" The line goes dead.

William put his hands on his head. "Bloody hell," he moans. The woman gives him a migraine. Cursing his job with all the vulgarities he knows, he begins to make calls to the hotel cleaning staff for a new ten-thousand dollar table linen.

* * *

Blair Waldorf stares at herself in the mirror. Ruby red lips that matches with a fire red headband with a simple hydrangea tucked into her bun of hair. A few ringlets fall onto a delicate face, framing it and making her doe eyes even larger.

She is perfection. The room is perfection.

Everything was perfect, even to the smallest details (the exact angles of the silver fork and spoon). Except for one thing.

He was late.

He was taking more than half an hour like Chuck's assistant had said – what was his name again, Ostroff? Osmond? She didn't know and didn't particularly care. When Chuck got here, she was going to get him fired along with his snide attitude.

But Chuck wasn't here. He was very, very late.

And Blair Waldorf didn't wait. If he wouldn't come, she'd make him come.

* * *

He's been sitting down at the exact same spot as where he'd been sitting before the board meeting began, progressed, and ended. He's been sipping the same glass of whiskey and staring out at the sane scenery. He's not moving because he's utterly terrified to move.

The ring still sits in its box, at the corner of the desk. He's afraid to touch it, afraid that it'll still be sitting at the same spot tomorrow, and even more terrified of the possibility that it might be on her ring finger. It's the longest he'd ever been faithful to anyone and he knows she's the only one who has a chance of taming him. She knows it too. He's hurt her and she's hurt him, so many times that it's become an adjective, a synonym of their relationship. No one thinks it'll work out, but they do. They both do. But what if he can't remain faithful to her? Or worse – what if she can't remain faithful to him?

He's not ready, he thinks, and yet he's never felt so sure about anything else in his life. He's ready and not ready at the same time. He's ready because it's Blair and he loves her (yes, he _loves_ her, there he said it) and he's not ready, well because it's _Blair_. They're explosive and reactive and there's half a chance both of them might not survive the chemistry between each other.

He feels like he's metamorphosing into a new chapter of his life where he has to accept social responsibility and he can't bear the thought of Blair's beautiful eyes staring at his with disappointment in his life. He knows, if he marries her, he would disappoint her one day (it was only a matter of time) and then he would feel his heart caving in. Chuck Bass had always craved control over his emotions and Blair Waldorf was not helping one bit.

He picks up the phone, gulping down more whiskey. "William? Good, you're there – cancel it," he slurs.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Cancel it, goddamnit!" Chuck snarls. "Get her out of The Palace and while you're at it I need company. Female, preferably."

There was a long pause. "Sir, you can't mean that," William says, in a voice so hesitant Chuck wants to punch him in the face. "She's been waiting for over two hours..."

"Do you want to get fired, Orson?" Chuck snaps, because he knows if his assistant says anything more, Chuck would never leave. And he _has_ to leave this – this stifling environment of love and its chains. He has to leave Blair, because only she could make him feel this way – so vulnerable, like he was a kid again. He has to leave Blair, so he can run after her and she can forgive him. Or she won't forgive him, which means he will have to pursue her again and their relationship can lapse back into the same on-off status, it will be a while before they get to the stage where he worries about the ring again.

"....No sir."

"Good." He hangs up and stares at the city skyline, wondering if he's being cowardly again and escaping through any window of opportunity left. He loves Blair, he does, but he doesn't want to feel stifled or forced into doing this – this agreement of lifetime enslavement.

At the moment, the door opens and a soft giggle makes him aware of her presence. Chuck swivels his chair around, and stares at the woman appraisingly. This woman isn't beautiful, not like his Blair. Her hair is too blond and her breasts too big to be real. Her giggle is faked and high-pitched and this faux beauty is so unlike Blair. She is the complete opposite, and it is with this thought that Chuck pulls her onto his lap, and takes her roughly against the table.

Neither notices the ring fall on the floor, and he is equally unsuspecting of the girlfriend behind the door staring at this display of infidelity, her perfectly glossed-lips open in disbelief and pearl tears falling from doe eyes. He only breaks off from the woman underneath it when the ajar door catches his eye, and under it a single, red Manolo Blahnik.

* * *

Blair stays in her apartment weeping. How he had fooled her with empty promises that he was changed, she would never know. Perhaps it was her inner romanticism that somehow, she could change him and he would repent and they would live a perfect life together with perfect, intelligent children to carry on the Waldorf-Bass lineage.

How could she have been such a fool?

To top it all off, she's lost her favourite Manolo Blahnik. She can't even remember losing it – her eyes had been blinded with tears and she had been running, running, away from the shattered corpse of her naive fantasies to even notice. She probably had lost it in the Palace – Blair grimaced. She would never, ever set foot in that infernal hotel ever again.

Chuck, typically, had chased after her, his clothes dishevelled, hair messy and his pants hastily buttoned, shirtless and he ran after her in the corridor, his swollen his swollen lips forming words, begging her to give him another chance. He'd told her _he loved her_.

Blair –thankfully – had made it to the elevator in time, and had a grief sense of gratification in closing the doors in his heartbreakingly handsome (and _dirty liar, cheating _) face. But he'd still said it. Those three words, eight letters. Those words, in another time, might have made her swoon and fall into his arms and return by him. Those words she had yearned to hear fall from his lips. Those words that would assure her that they were meant to be, and that they were doing something right, and not a huge fucking waste of time.

But it had been. A huge fucking waste of time. It was a merry-go-round, a carousel twirling around the same axis with its highs (where you would feel that you were on top of the world) and lows (where you just wanted to crawl under a rock and die) but back to the starting point after a period of time. They were right back at square one.

She'd walked as quickly as she could away, away from him stricken with the possibility that this time the breakup might be for real, even though her legs screamed for her to go _back, BACK_ to Chuck, back to her regular irregular love life and imperfect perfection with Chuck. She couldn't even look behind, because she knew if she did she would be running straight back into his arms, into her life in the Upper East Side that she had grown up in.

But everyone had their limits, and Blair had reached hers. Blair deserved better, and Waldorfs _never_ took second best.

Blair buries her head in her hands. Is this what her life is supposed to be? Dancing with Chuck around each other, each trying to express their love through hurt and insults? They were chasing their own tails and whenever Blair starts to think she's got their relationship pegged down he always goes to ruin it all. Well, either that or she ruins everything. She isn't surprised at all about the breakup, though – they've been going off and on so many times she can't remember how many first dates with each other they've had. She can't recall the number of first kisses they've shared with each other or the first time they've woken up tangled in his sheets.

Everyone used to think they were heading straight into disaster the moment they'd announced their relationship. But they'd somehow pulled through one year of non-cheating and non-backstabbing and everyone thought, maybe, just _maybe_ they could work things out. That if Blair Waldorf couldn't tame Chuck Bass, no one would be able to.

But that was it.

And Blair realised, this time with absolute certainty, that this was the end for Chuck and Blair, Bass and Waldorf. Nothing could ever be the same now, and frankly Blair was tired of all the pain he had done nothing but to give to her.

Beside her, her phone buzzed.

**Spotted at The Palace. A blessed blond entering the rooms of the one and only C. Queen B spotted running down the corridor with a cheating C chasing after. Ouch. Well, as the saying goes, a leopard can't change its spots. And Chuck Bass certainly isn't going to be changing anytime soon – unless it's out of his clothes, of course. Better luck next time, B.**

Staring at her phone numbly, humiliated that everyone would be able to see and know, once again Blair Waldorf has been duped and failed yet again at the incorrigible task named Chuck Bass, Blair realises that somehow, it has to stop.

She was _tired_, tired of Gossip Girl and her childish posts, of _Penelope_ and _Hazel_ of their faux friendship and practiced sucking-up, of _Nate_ who never looked at her the same way as he looked at Serena or even his current stupid Brooklynite girlfriend, of bastards like _Chuck Bass_ who kept ruining her life over and over again (and who she keeps letting ruin) and even _Serena_, for God's sake, for her natural perfection and how easily she'd found love in _Cabbage Patch_, and whose life was so _perfect_ she never really needed Blair. She had, after all, just "upped" and left her, hadn't she? Without any prior warning. _With Carter Baizen_. And Blair had to find out again, from Gossip Girl. Just like everyone else.

A new onset of tears prickle at her eyes, and Blair angrily wipes them away.

She needed a break from the scandals, the heartbreak and the bitching and backstabbing. A getaway, somewhere atypical so Chuck Bass and all his damned P.I.s in the world couldn't find her and where Gossip Girl wouldn't bother her.

"Dorota," she says numbly, not feeling her lips move even though she knew she was speaking. "Book me a plane ticket."

Dorota stares at her curiously. "Where to, Ms Blair?"

"Anywhere," she whispers thickly. "Anywhere that you've never heard off, where most people don't go."

"Ms Blair, isn't it quite impossible-"

"Just _do_ it, Dorota!" Blair half-screams, half-sobs.

Dorota nods hastily and goes down. She has never before seen Ms Blair so emotional before – it must be that Chuck boy. Dorota vowed never to let that arrogant Chuck boy touch or hurt her Blair again – or he would have to deal with _her_.

Blair blindly gets up, and somehow gets herself into the bathroom without falling over. The porcelain bowl looks so clean and inviting... and now it is stained with remnants of her lunch, the odour washing over her as she purges herself clean of the memories, and purges away every ounce of feeling she has for Chuck. She turns on the tap and watches as her vomit is swirled away by the clear water, and she feels sick again. She throws up until her stomach protests, for there is nothing in her stomach anymore to be purged.

Blair stares at herself in the mirror and forces a small smile on her face. She is gaunt, eyes bloodshot from crying, but she feels cleaner and skinnier and more beautiful now. Now, she thinks she is ready to face the rest of the world, so long as she won't see his face again.

"Miss Blair," Dorota's voice sounds distantly as she calls from the hallway, and Blair hastily washes all evidence of her bulimia away as she leaves the washroom to face her housekeeper. "I think I've found the perfect place. It's a small town in Washington D.C called....called Forks, Ms Blair."

"Forks," Blair muses thoughtfully. The name is unheard of, and it seems slightly hippie to be named after a cutlery of some sort. Glancing up, she smiles a genuine one. "Thank you, Dorota."

Turning away, a ghost of a smirk tugs at the ends of Blair's perfectly glossed lips.

_Watch out, Forks. Blair Waldorf's coming to town._

* * *

A/N Sorry to any Chuck/Blair fans out there who might be reading this, but you have to admit their on-off relationship is getting quite annoying and I had to break it off somehow. Read and Review!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N I know I'm horrible to keep you waiting so long - and I haven't updated my other story for longer. I just want to say, it's not that I'm giving up on the story, it's just that I'm really falling behind in schoolwork (one of the lowest in the level) and I have to prioritize. It's very hectic right now with two or three projects due in three days time presented on the same day, various homework, and dance schedules for practices and performances, and studying for my End Of Years. I'll probably update afters the EOYS, which ends around mid-September. I just wanted to say, thank you so much for all the reviews, they _have_ really inspired me and I don't want to let you guys down.

A little warning though: you might find Blair or Edward OOC in this chapter, but I'll explain why later. For now, read and review!

* * *

The first time Blair sees him, she's crying.

She's convinced her father to buy a summer house here (even though _here_ is virtually no where) and is currently driving a hot pink Chevrolet Corvette over when her mother calls and demands to know exactly what she is doing there, instead of heading off to whatever university's she's supposed to go to (Blair doesn't bother correcting her that she's going to Oxford only three months later) and why is she here in a socially unrecognised place, doing nothing to improve the Waldorf name?

Blair tries to ignore her sharp, acidic words, the words that somehow know how to cut and snipe at all of Blair's insecurities, but Eleanor's in a cold rage today and she bitingly informs Blair that since she's seen fit to take an indefinite leave of school to go to Forks, Eleanor will take the liberty to reenrol her in Fork's high school for the rest of the summer break (Summer, much less any sun, was not in Forks' metrological dictionary).

Blair starts to protest, but she remembers Constance's and Chuck and she falls silent again.

Eleanor hangs up.

Tears stream down Blair's face, but she doesn't say a word as she leans back against the leather headrest of the Corvette and fists a manicured hand on the dashboard. Amazingly, she doesn't scream, or throw anything at the dashboard, or somehow cause the Corvette any irreversible damage. Tears just fall and Blair's hands quiver, splashing against her long thighs, angry and sad and helpless at the same time Blair is unable to do anything but just shake, in helpless fury that her life is not as perfect as it should be, that her life is not as perfect as it's _supposed_ to be.

If the lying, cheating, motherchucker were here, Blair would've let him hold her. But he isn't. He's miles away on the Upper East Side holding a slumber party with quite a few whores (if the last Gossip Girl post was right) and she's _here_ in this godforsaken purgatory of her own making with no Prada or LV store in sight that she can speed to for retail therapy. She's alone in this rainy, quiet town with practically no one in sight, unless you counted the asshole behind in his car who wouldn't stop blaring his horn.

"All _right_, already!" Blair half-snarls, half-screams, starts the car up (she'd stalled it in the middle of the road) and pulls over to give the asshole room.

She glances over and flashes him the finger, scowling as she notices the car behind is a Jeep Wrangler. A _Jeep. Wrangler_. She shudders. How horribly antique. She was already regretting flying over the county for this – this fashion _hell_, where she was enrolled in a school where they all probably drove _trucks_ and _Toyotas _and _Hondas_ and the like. They were probably dressed by their mothers with bargain sales from _Gap_, too, judging from the few homeless people Blair had seen on her drive in (or was that local townfolk, in their natural habitat?)

Blair rolls her eyes and slides off her Gucci shades to examine this real-life specimen right before her eyes. Even troglodytes had their assholes, she supposed. Narrowing her eyes, she glares a patented Waldorf glare, the kind of look that let everyone in the vicinity know that Blair Waldorf was mad, and that no one messed with Blair Waldorf.

It wasn't just one idiot, she supposes. She catches a glimpse of a few shadowy figures in the jeep, moving agitatedly against each other. There are about five figures in the car. Probably kids heading back from a frat party with nothing but kegs of poorly-made beer, she supposes, her lips curling in a ready-made sneer.

A guy pokes his head out, and Blair instinctively sucks a breath in. He is big, muscled, and rather gorgeous with short blond hair and dark eyes. Immediately, the brief attraction is gone as he smirks and hoots, "Hey, _nice car_, lady!", and overtakes her.

Blair raises a patented Blair Waldorf eyebrow lift, further enhanced but the snooty expression (she had perfected it since age three) and perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Her doe eyes are alight with anger as she tries to imagine them burning holes in that stupid overly-gelled hair that reminds her of a certain ex in UES, but she does not let it affect her. Stupid _asshole_. What did he know about cars? She tosses her hair back instead, and leans back, letting it go. Blair Waldorf is here to escape, not catfight it out with a Jeep-driving teenager who probably has more muscles than brains.

As the car speeds past, blaring rock music, Blair glances, for a brief fraction of a second out of curiosity at the back seat window that has rolled down. A face stares back at her, a face that was inhumanly, unattainably beautiful. More beautiful than Nate even, and Nathaniel Archibald is one of the most beautiful people in the Upper East Side.

And if there was ever a weakness in her detached, scheming Queen B persona, it was a weakness for unattainable, beautiful boys.

There is a brief smirk flitting across the face of the boy, as if he has somehow read her thoughts, and then he is gone, and the Jeep is still moving away, the silence of Forks broken by the raucous laughter and squeals coming from inside the Jeep.

Blair stares after the Jeep, eyes narrowed and lips pursed in concentration, contemplating the contradiction of Forks. She'd been convinced Forks had been a mistake, and it was a boringly rainy, summer-less town filled with ugly, fashion-backward hippies who had a poorer financial situation than even _Cabbage Patch_.

Then again, perhaps Blair had been too harsh. She tended to do that sometimes. Perhaps a re-evaluation was needed.

With such beautiful people in Forks maybe it _was_ worth the effort of taking over after all.

Blair smiles, as the wheels in her mind begins to turn, and Blair does the thing she does best – plot.

* * *

She learns his name is Edward, and he apparently "doesn't date".

Sitting in the cafeteria of Forks High School, raising her eyebrows in utter disgust at the food they served (they didn't even have low-fat, no-cream caramelatte) and opting for a simple yoghurt instead, Blair slips elegantly into the seat next to Jessica. Jessica was something like the unofficial Queen B of the school, she'd decided. She was pretty and most people knew her, although whether they _liked_ her was another story.

Forks High School was an easy enough conquest, almost ridiculously so. Although none of them had even heard the brand Eleanor Waldorf before, most were already excited to meet her after learning she was from New York, even happier to learn she was from the renowned Upper East Side, and deliriously ecstatic to see the new girl so poised, intelligent and gorgeous. Everyone knew her name by third-period; Blair didn't even need to drop her mother's name to be recognised. Strangely enough, Blair likes it. For the first time, she doesn't feel appreciated just because of who her mother is.

Most guys were already drooling – she was clearly the first girl to walk through the doors of Forks High School wearing Estee Lauder. Which wasn't a surprise, Blair thinks, shooting the grimy walls of the cafeteria with distaste. The nearest EL store was a few hundred miles away.

She flicks another casually-bored look at Edward again, admiring briefly the way the sunlight glints off the bronze tints in his hair. He still doesn't look over, and Blair is becoming vaguely annoyed.

"Well-" a soft-spoken girl that Blair had forgotten was even there ventures tentatively (Blair shoots her a quick look, what was her name? Laura? Lana?) "He _did_ date Bella Swan-"

"_Hush_, Lauren!" Jessica said quickly. "Blair doesn't want to know about that, right Blair?"

"On the contrary, you've got me _very_ interested," Blair purrs as she leans forward, ears pricked. Strangely enough, she feels slightly jealous that Edward has a girlfriend, while he won't so much as _look_ over at her. "Where's Bella? I'd love to meet her."

"Well-" Jessica hesitates, although whether uncertain to share the news or pausing coyly to increase tension Blair does not know, and does not bother figuring out.

"Bella used to be a new girl in our school. She dated Edward for a while, but they broke up and she transferred to the school over at La Push instead." A blond, baby-faced guy says at the table, sensing the hesitation. He pitches his voice lower, as if he's telling a fantastic secret. "There was _another_ guy involved. Jacob Black. She chose him." Blair looks at his overly eager face, and semi-disinterestedly drags her spoon around her yoghurt. _Edward Cullen. Bella Swan_. _Jacob Black. Interesting. _

She glances over at him again, and is startled to see he is staring directly at her, his golden eyes intense with...hatred? Impossible. Guys didn't hate her. Edward was just...curious about her, that was all, she decided. And he was just as beautiful as she was and just as well dressed. Equipped with a very handy AWOL girlfriend (or was it ex-girlfriend?) he was ripe for the picking. Both of them could rule the school together, just like Nate and Blair had. Like how Nate and Blair were _supposed_ to.

She stares at him again, scrutinizing his every feature, every plane of his chiselled face. Yes, he would make a fine co-leader of this school, Blair decides. Better than what _Chuck_ would have made, anyway. At the mention of his name, a name Blair has been trying to suppress for too long now, she feels a weird, twisting sensation in her chest. As if someone was strangling her heart with a Bass scarf.

Blair blinks, her chest –_for it couldn't _possibly_ be her heart_ – twists a little more, as she stares blankly ahead. She feels a pair of golden eyes boring into her, and as she locks eyes with him for the third time this week, she notices the hard, angry glare he has been giving her has softened into almost, _sympathetic_.

Sympathetic. Like he was better than Blair. Like he felt sorry for her. _Her_!

Blair glares at him, and squares her shoulders. The stress is getting to her, she thinks. In the UES she would've flown for a weekend in the Hamptons, but Forks in its mediocrity has only offered this boy as respite from the drama in her life. He is going to be a distraction. A beautiful, irresistible, _temporary_ distraction from Chuck, much like Marcus Beaton – but that was all he would be. A Jeep-driving Marcus Beaton with bronze hair.

Blair ignores what Jessica is chattering on about in the background, and what Tim-_was that his name?- _is doing trying desperately (and failing) to gain her attention – or at least, interest.

Not even bothering dismissing them with a wave of their hand like she had done Jenny – at least the little Humphrey had a modicum of fashion sense – Blair excuses herself with a gracious, queenly smile and takes her Gucci purse, and walks over to his table.

She notices that his table is filled with equally beautiful people, who are feigning as much disinterest as he is. They look moderately suspicious, but not surprised – Blair, feeling that she is losing her edge, tries desperately to reclaim the game that she feels is sliding out of her grasp before it has even begun.

"Hi," she begins, with a perfect mega-watt smile, "I don't know if you know me but I'm new here. I'm Blair Wa-"

"Look, _princess_," the only blond at the table interrupts, delicate eyebrow arched so high Blair couldn't help but admire, "We're not _interested_, okay?"

Blair's outraged, and she lets her eyes spit fire. _Who did they think they were_? "I'm Blair _Waldor-_"

"And I'm Emmett, pretty lady," the big jock she vaguely recognises as _the asshole_ with the Jeep interrupts, as he attempts to flirt with her. "Saw you in the car the other day, right?"

"Yes," Blair says politely, but she's disinterested. He isn't the one she's after, no matter how furious the blond looks at the jock's attempts at flirting. The thought of flirting back just to spite her flits through Blair's mind, but she puts it down almost immediately. Flirting nowadays just reminded her of Chuck Bass, and the unpleasant lurches in her chest. "So, from what I heard, you don't live around here."

"We live somewhere just out of town," a boy interrupts in a southern drawl, leaning forward in a casual stance, but Blair's used to reading body language in the UES and she notices the tensely drawn muscles in his arms. "We prefer...nature." A quick flash of white teeth, as if sharing a private joke. Most at the table chuckled. Blair and the blond didn't.

Blair raised an eyebrow. Born and bred in New York, she could never understand the beauty of nature...unless you counted Central Park? Huffing a little, she says with as little arrogance as she can muster – she doesn't want for Edward to think she's _obnoxious_, no – she volunteers, "I just bought a summer house here too. A little off in the woods outside town, but it gives me privacy." Privacy _away _from what, she doesn't know. All she knows is that somehow, she likes being surrounded by trees because they make her feel so far from New York.

They stiffen collectively. "The...woods?" A black-haired, pixie-looking girl repeats, looking slightly shocked. "That's impossible. There's only two houses in the woods, and one of them the old owner promised never to sell."

"Well, everything has a price, I suppose," Blair says uncertainly – where are they going with this? – "The owner was too happy to sell his house once my father bid for it."

"Figures," Edward mutters, his eyes closed as though looking at her causes physical pain. Blair feels a pang of _(hurt?)_ as he refuses to look over at her, and watches his fists whiten as he clenches and releases them paradoxically.

"Well-" She falters, because for the first time everything about them is impossible to read and Blair is unable to place them into the social hierarchy constructed at the back of her organised mind. "Maybe we could-"

"I'm sorry, we have to go," Edward interrupts, and he leaps gracefully out of his chair. The others follow his cue and looking like a troupe of ballet dancers, effortlessly stand up and leave – _leave!_- Blair Waldorf standing alone, staring at them bewildered and speechless. No one bothers to acknowledge her save for a saucy wink from the jock, and the pixie who lingers to throw a quick smile and a rushed, "I _love_ your skirt", before she too, slips away like the rest of them.

Blair walks back to her table, oblivious to the sympathetic glances and Jessica's slightly smug look. She is too busy replaying the conversation in her head, when she realises how much of an _idiot_ she must seem to them. Throughout the conversation, they were the ones directing it and manipulating _her_, while she stood there like a minion, eager to please. _Her, Blair Waldorf_! The thought is too intolerable to bear.

It is their beauty, she supposes. Their beauty, especially when clustered together to close, is overwhelming and leaves people breathless. They move in a liquid perfection, like remodelled versions of Serenas, more beautiful than the original. _Serena_. That was exactly how they reminded her of. Effortlessly beautiful and perfect, enigmatic in the way she could seem happy and sad at the same time, an old soul caged within the confinements of time, forever struggling to be free from her caged life as a Van derWoodsen.

Blair pushes all thoughts of Serena from her mind – why was she even _thinking_ about her?- and focuses instead on the current problem presented. A miscalculation on her part had her assuming that the Cullens were merely tragically beautiful loners with strong family ties. The truth revealed was that the Cullens were the ones officially running the school. Everyone noticed them, and everyone respected them, judging from the way they specially ensured that they kept out of their way. Everyone stared at them, and all the boys and girls drooled over them. They were the real Kings and Queens of the school, and _Blair wants in._

It's fortunate that Blair has always gotten what she wanted, then.

* * *

The first time Blair talks to him they're alone.

She's grunting and cursing because it'd nearing evening and she's stuck, _lost_ wandering amidst some old trees in muddy soil. It's her bad day today, which started by her Chevrolet Corvette somehow not working and getting towed away to Tyler Something-or-the-Other's house, because he's "a mechanic" and likes "fixing stuff". Blair wasn't sure if she could entrust something like her Corvette into his greasy, slimy truck-driving hands and beaten leather jacket but before she get over her shock at his audacity and yell for him to _get back here_, her Chevrolet is gone in a poof of pink smoke, and so is Tyler, leather jacket and all, leaving Blair alone with no transport back.

Jessica's already gone shopping with some preppy-wannabes and had asked Blair along but Blair had shuddered at the thought of shopping somewhere as mediocre as the local mall. No, thank you please! A punk kid at offered her a ride, eyes gleaming as eagerly as the four studs in his nose, but she'd turned it down. She'd rather walk than be driven home in a _Toyota_, much less by a guy who had more gold in his face that she had on her hand.

Finally, she's gets something decent in the form of Lauren's BMW – apparently the quiet, nondescript Lauren is one of the richest girls in town with both parents as lawyers – and makes a mental note to promote Lauren up the social hierarchy. She's conversing rather fluidly with Lauren – shy as she was, she _did_ have a good brain for Blair to indulge in some intelligent conversation. Everything was getting better, and Blair was pleased.

That is, until Chuck Bass calls.

Blair lets it ring on and on when she recognises the caller ID, and sits back flippantly ignoring her racing heart and smirking as she pictures Chuck Bass, waiting for her to pick up the phone. Good, he was finally getting how she felt all these years waiting for him to finally realise his own feelings, to finally grow up – the frustration, the tears, the guilt, the want to do _something right_-

Just as she decides he's had enough of waiting and too little of the _confronting_ and reaches for her phone, it stops vibrating and lies there oddly still. Blair's hand drops back to her lap, feeling oddly hollow and disappointed that after she'd fought so long for him, he was willing to let it go after thirty seconds. However, as soon as she closes her eyes to guard against the tears; it jerks back to life briefly, in a juddering vibration that makes Blair flinch with surprise. The text is simple – it's as simple as how they've always felt about each other, and as complex as the entire nature of their relationship itself.

_Come home. I miss U_.

And the message is so Chuck, thinking that she would still want to return to the UES to face him after all that he'd done and what the irrevocable damage he'd done to their relationship – and so much unlike Chuck in its sweet simplicity that conveyed more than what a long speech could probably do. Blair's uncertain now, and she falters as she tells Lauren to stop the car and that her house is just half a mile walk away through the woods (she won't walk along the road) to her summer house. She doesn't wait for a reply as she strides out of her car, wobbling on six-inch red Manolo Blahniks as she takes a quick cut through the woods to think.

At least, that was three hours ago. Now Basstard is the furthest thing from her mind as she clomps around barefoot in the muddy earth, cursing all the worst words she'd ever heard from Chuck. She'd had to take out her Manolos after they'd threatened breakage. Her summer house is _here_, somewhere is this damned woods –

And she stops abruptly, because somehow she's wandered into a meadow and it's the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. It was small, but its tiny size lent a sense of quaintness to the only area liberated from the oppression of the looming trees. Wildflowers are sprouted everywhere, a haze of yellow, violet and white. The air seems lighter here somewhere, shimmery in this gilded gold cage with the trees for bars. Blair wanders around, half in a daze and her breath knocked out of her at the sheer beauty of nature. Born and raised a typical –well, not exactly _typical_- Upper East Sider, she'd only ever appreciated the concrete jungle. But here in this Flower Valhalla –

She swears she just saw a cluster of hydrangeas in a corner.

And then she sees him. He's lying down a few feet away from her, so still she would've thought he was dead, his head turned away and still looking so impossibly beautiful like a fallen statue against the darkening expanse of grass gradually lightened by the shine of stars.

She's beginning to think he's asleep when he abruptly rolls over and sits up, gold eyes intensely burning into her as he asks, "Why are you here?" Strangely, he isn't as brusque as lunch the day before, but this time she senses the piqued, mild curiosity in his voice.

His beauty isn't overwhelming as before now that Blair's prepared, and that he's only one out of five this time. Blair has never truly forgiven him for the Lunch Incident, and what was he doing, asking a shitty question like that? "What do you think I'm doing in the middle of forest light-years away from the next civilised city, Cullen? I'm admiring the stars." she snarls irritably.

Far from being offended as per her intentions, a smile quirks at the corners of his model-worthy lips, so quick and faint it could pass as an illusionary flicker in the darkening sky, but it's a smile nonetheless and Blair sees it anyway. "You're Blair Waldorf, right?"

She nods finally after a lengthy pause. She doesn't know why she doesn't chide him for not remembering her name –_hardly _anyone forgot her – but instead slides down to sit in the feather- soft meadow beside him. They sit in silence, for the silence wages the war for them. They are too busy trying to guess and second-guess each other's thoughts.

"You're different than I thought you were."

And just like that, the silence is broken, the war ended. She doesn't know who says it, her or him. She doesn't know who won and who lost. It doesn't matter anyway.

"You're thinking about someone. I can tell."

Both of them were.

Blair swings her long legs under her and leans back on the feather-soft meadow, lying on her back. Her dress shirt is stained with grass, but for once _she doesn't care_. She doesn't know if it's an epiphany or some revolutionary life-changing moment that's writing her down into a Hallmark card, but for once she feels _different_.

Perhaps it was seeing Chuck Bass's name appear on her phone screen for the first time after The Incident, or being impossibly tired of _fighting_ with everyone and anyone all the time, or maybe it's because she's in a beautiful garden watching the sunset with a ridiculously beautiful man.

"Blair," her name is whispered against his lips, a tender caress of syllables that makes her hair stand on end and her senses tingle.

She looks over, and watches as he leans over her, his body hovering dangerously close to her –Blair has the urge to grab and kiss him but banishes the thought before it is fully formed. He looks at her, lips parted and hair tousled, dangerous and delicate at the same time. He pauses as if he's about to kiss her and just as she angles her body forward he leans back, placing distance between them. Shadow has fallen over his features, and she watches as a rather un-Cullen, _devilish _smirk graces his inhumanly perfect features as he holds a flower up to her.

_Hydrangea_.

"For him."

She smiles at him, a bittersweet curl of the lips. She's surprised that she hasn't actually murdered him yet or at the very least planned his demise – someone who had _snubbed_ her in front of the entire school, but this was a magical moment and they are both broken-hearted who got the wrong end of the deal. Blair is content, for the moment, to let it lie but it's clear from his body posture and glittering eyes that he's offered her a challenge, and Blair Waldorf, feeling shitty or no, _never_ backs down from a challenge.

She tilts herself into him, so close that the top of her headband brushes the smooth, clean-shaven chin. Her hand on his chest feels so cold, and he is like marble, a glorious statue crafted from the finest sculptor in the world. But he is a man, after all, and Blair Waldorf knows men like she knows any other. His breathing quickens as her mouth grazes his ear, but he doesn't pull away. That isn't a clear-cut victory, but it isn't a refusal and Blair takes what she can get, before she takes some more.

Under the starry sky, they're playing with ice-hot fire and both know it. That doesn't mean that they'll stop.

Blair's hand closes on a flower and she presses it into his cold, smooth hands spanning her hands at his sides. A rose, delicate in its shade of pale pink.

"For her." She triumphantly whispers into his ear, careful not to graze it with teeth. They were, after all, strangers, and propriety _has_ to be observed.

Right before the last bit of sunlight is devoured by the darkness, Blair clutches her stalk of hydrangea and looks to its cluster she'd seen in the corner. She sees a dark butterfly, crowned with red, darting about the flowers.

Thinking about it, it _had_ been a long while since she'd heard from those darn butterflies in her stomach.

* * *

Post A/N:

I'm already guessing some of you might call me out on making Edward flirt a little with Blair. But you forget, it's Blair. She does know how to flirt, and she does it excellently well. Edward, on the other hand, is obviously missing Bella (which if you've read carefully enough because I just slotted it into one line, sorry about that) who chose Jacob and moved over to the school at La Push instead. Both are seeing each other as rebound. Blair misses and still loves Chuck, and is physically attracted to Edward, but she does not view him as anything more of a prettier-Marcus. That's it. I repeat, they do not see each other as anything more than maybe-friends.

Edward is obviously sentimental in the meadow, it having being the first places he'd shown Bella, and Blair and Bella does have similar features. Also, I made Edward seem "darker" in the darkness to highlight the darker nature of being a vampire - I don't think it's all about flowers and weddings and animal blood and golden halos that they prance around in. They do kill, and they do drink blood, no matter how much they try to control it. I think people do tend to forget about that in the name of vampire-human "true love".

Read and Review.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Sorry, I know I've been lazy with the updating and my EOYs are coming, pretty soon - 8 days in fact. But somehow the plot bunnies seem to hit whenever I promise I'm on a brief hiatus, so it gave birth to this so there you go. Like I put up on my Profile Page:

Just a warning, though: I'm not good at fluffy, airy, loveydovey fics. In fact, I suck at them. This fic will be slightly darker - not a lot, not very noticeable, but I dont think I can think of a suitable happy ending for them. Secondly, I realised this fic has probably the most loopholes in them - such as simple questions like how old are Blair and Chuck etc in the fic as pointed out by **DewiMadrim **and **voldemort14** .

I honestly say _I don't know_, because I started out the story intending for Blair to be all grown up. Then I realised that this would limit the possibility of them meeting - the only time Edward probably talks to strangers is when he's forced to in class - and the fic wouldn't even get started. So I put Blair to spend her summer break in Forks. I apologise if it doesn't make any sense but I live in a tropical, Asian climate so I don't know how the summer break thing goes, and I sure as hell don't know exactly how long you wait to go to college. I tried researching but too much information makes my brain go _yadda yadda yadda. _I'm sorry if it may be a bit confusing though, and I'm working on this problem as soon as I can. Just to clarify - TAoD will not be a full length fic, maybe around 5 chapters or so.

**Also, **you have to admit, keeping the secret that you are vampires do make you a little suspicious of everyone. I dunno, that's how I intepreted the Cullens eating alone despite them being so beautiful and all - they probably chased everyone else away. The way I see it, it's only because Edward was attracted to Bella for the first time in his lifetime that they began to notice Bella and go out of their way to be nice to her. Other than that, they would be a little cold and _cliquey_ of a sort.

There you go. A mouthful. So here's a chapter - or maybe a teaser, I haven't quite decided yet - but I'll probably come back to edit a few things. Read and Review!

* * *

Chapter 3

The change is little, barely discernible, but it's there. It is fortunate, then, that Blair has a keen sense of observation and is able to read people like no other. Blair mentally notes the mere existence of that one night under the stars juxtaposes itself subtly into undateable, icy heart of Edward Cullen (if he had a heart, that sneaky bastard). It is almost imperceptible, so much so that Blair thinks she might be the only one to notice it – the way he tilts his head at a curious angle at her whenever she speaks up in class, or the brief flash of amusement in his intense eyes as she snickers at Jessica's dressing (she has taken to attempting Blair's style, failing miserably with Gap as a replacement for Bergdorf's) or the quick, faintest quirk of his lips when he glances briefly at her as the teacher mentions her name and the silky brush of his hand against hers as he passes a pen or worksheet over.

He doesn't speak, but he acknowledges her existence and Blair ignores the thrill and cunning satisfaction she gets in the pit of her stomach, purposely flipping her hair back and telling herself that whether or not he notices her does not concern her in the least. Or at least that's what she tells herself. Sometimes Blair catches herself smiling back at him, or glancing haughtily over at his (eyes, nose, lips) faded jeans and sweater over a snugly-fitting white tee.

_Not good enough for you_, _Waldorf_, she tells herself. And the Upper East Sider in her dutifully clutches her Prada bag a little tighter and ignores the pitiful voice in her head piping up, _but he's good _for _you_.

The spark between their feigned disinterest is undeniable, though.

They both share a dirty little secret and Blair's had enough to last her a lifetime, but that doesn't mean she'll stop.

He's still freezing ice-cold and blazing white-hot fire but somehow, he's not as untouchable as before. It's as if that one lone encounter has melted and extinguished his impermeable front and now he's...human. Less like a god, somehow. And Blair knows ordinary, puny humans are effortless to manipulate and much more fun to do so. No matter how beautiful said ordinary, puny humans were, they would get crushed under the dainty Miu Miu kitten heels of Blair Waldorf.

He looks at her no less than four times during Biology class (not that she was counting, of course) and smiles very slightly when Blair snarls at him to fix his eyes somewhere else. She can't help feeling a little disappointed when he obliges all too easily, though.

They exchange glances in the cafeteria, though, where everyone is at their loudest gossiping and complaining about the food (Blair has been bringing strawberry yoghurt and Cuban salad every day since the first day of school, specially prepared by Mark, the chef in her summer house) and people are less occupied with staring and complimenting her, or staring and whispering about the Cullens to even bother notices where her steady, almost predatory gaze is directed to. Every lunch, her dark brown eyes find Edward's gold ones (was it her, or did they seem to be getting darker?) and a perfectly trimmed eyebrow is arched in a challenge.

He will always smile back, even though sometimes his hands grip the table hard and his knuckles turn white. Blair always pretends not to see it.

No one else does.

Jessica is still bugging her about what fashion accessories did she think would go well with her hair (accompanied with a hair toss of flaky hair and an envious glance at Blair's natural curls), Lauren is still animatedly talking to a guy (Blair still couldn't remember his name) about Dante's _The Inferno_ close-reading analysis in Literature class and how it could be seen metaphorically and the authorial intention, the blond guy is alternating between shuffling and muttering to his feet and trying to talk to her (oh wait, was that one action?). Tyler, the Corvette-stealer, is enthusiastically talking to some guys with glassy eyes on how interesting it was to examine and take apart expensive cars first-hand.

My _expensive car, you sonofabitch. _

Blair disinterestedly stirs her yoghurt about. She's contemplating her life here in Forks, and surprisingly enough she likes it. It's cold, rainy and quiet. Although the people here weren't probably a quarter as rich as she was, perhaps she could arrange to introduce her ever-useful handbook of all the Terms of Fashion into this third-world fashion nation. Perhaps even persuade her mother to set up an Eleanor Waldorf branch in Port Angeles, which was only a few hours' drive away. Blair could wake up every weekend to manage a long-overdue shopping trip. She'd have the best of everything – no Gossip Girl, no Chuck, no Serena (nobody to outshine her constantly), hot guys (she refused to think of Edward)...

Blair realises with abject horror that she's thinking of her staying in Forks _in the long run_. Impossible – she still has a couple of weeks before university, and after University she would return to the UES, after all, as planned. She would either continue running Waldorf Designs with her mother, major in fashion-related events, or a lawyer (Blair liked to think that she did indeed have the calibre to take after her father's footsteps). She would get married, have two perfect children and be the envy of everyone around her, and that it would be her life in the UES for a long, long, time.

Blair's so preoccupied with reassuring herself of her pre-planned future that she doesn't glance over at Edward again, and so she doesn't see his bronze head bow down and his shoulders slump just slightly.

* * *

"_Do something_, dammit!" he hollers at the phone. "You're a _fucking _P.I. for Christ's sake, not a concussed headless chicken!"

The man on the other side of his phone, who has never once let him down before, lets him down for the first time as he garbles an indiscernible reply. Chuck recognises a few words in the warped speech, to recognise the sounds of a babbling apology quaking tremulously with fear at the backlash, and at being at the mercy of a furious Chuck Bass. "You're fired!" Chuck snarls in disgust, before he throws the phone savagely against the wall, where upon impact cracks loudly and drops unmercifully to the floor.

It had been certainly an inconvenient time for Andrew, his regular, trusted PI to apply for paid leave. _A wedding_, in fact. The one he could have had if only he'd given the ring as planned – well not a wedding per se, since Blair wouldn't have let him marry her that early after graduation, but a future-wedding that he would at least be _promised_ to. And that man was thirty years his senior. _Thirty years._ Bloody fucking hell.

Chuck curses out loud again. It's been a month since Blair has walked out on the Upper East Side, and the gossip still circulates. The most popular one, of course, being that Blair found out about Chuck's infidelity and flies to a foreign land. Sadly to say, that _was_ the truth, in its whole iridescent glory. Other versions included Blair walking in on Chuck and another woman and being murdered by Chuck (he'd even had to entertain _visits_ from the police after they'd gotten wind of it), or Blair meeting another prince Marcus dunce and running off to a faraway land with him (utterly ridiculous, although his stomach lurched at the thought of Blair being with another man).

But all this rumors didn't change the fact that Blair was missing.

It has been a month.

Chuck has tried all the ways he knows to get Blair back – the women. Anything to make Blair come back, and re-stake her claim on him, because that's the dynamics of their relationship – pure, unadulterated possessiveness and jealousy. He makes sure he is seen herding the women into his room, locks the door and sits them down on his bed and offers them tea and talks about Blair, though – just to while away the time until it is deemed suitably scandalous enough. However, as the more women pour into his chambers and still no luck from Blair, he has returned to his old ways – desperate to make Blair feel jealousy, anger –_ anything_. But she doesn't, and the women and the liquor still keep coming and he's still counting (or had he lost count already?).

He takes a long swig of amber scotch and dials Nate on the antique telephone on his desk. "Any luck, man?" he slurs.

Nate, ever the intuitive friend, picks up the conversation topic quickly. "Blair, you mean? Well, no. Serena has no clue where Blair is, either-"

Chuck blinks, forcing his blurry mind to focus and sharpen on the glaring fact. Since when was Serena even contactable? One day she'd just up and vanished with Carter, without a word of goodbye to her best friends. "_Serena?_ You talked to _Serena_? Since when?"

"I've always been friends with Serena," Nate says, and this time his tone is defensive, almost petulant, and Chuck knows that even in his inebriated state he's hit the mark.

"Hold up, Nathaniel. I think something's missing in this equation of touchy reunions. Or rather, some_one_." Chuck leans forward and grips the scotch glass tighter. He has to struggle to think, but he does it anyway because something is nagging at the back of his mind, something that his infallible intuition warns doesn't quite add up and _if only he could just figure out what_. "Where did that hippie chick of yours cycle off to?"

"Vanessa?" Nate ventures. There's a slight hesitation before he answers haltingly. "It – It didn't work out between us."

Chuck laughs, although he feels no distinct amusement from the situation. It comes out more like a bark, a sharp sound of harsh laughter. Although he can't see Nate, he's pretty sure he flinches. "_Didn't work out_, Nathaniel?" he demurs, his drunk voice dripping acid. "Or was it because of a _certain six-foot blond_ that you keep breaking up with girlfriends for?"

There's a long silence between them, that stretches out so tensely Chuck knows its going to snap and lash back at both of them anytime soon. "You're drunk, Chuck." Nate says quietly. "You're not thinking straight-"

"Neither are you," Chuck tosses vindictively at him. "I'm drunk Nathaniel, not _stupid_. And right now, all I want to know is -when did you start talking to Serena?"

Another long pause. Chuck closes his eyes as a headache rushes past him, but he blinks away the sluggishness of it all when Nate's guilty, soft voice echoes out of the antique speaker of the phone Chuck wants so badly to crush right now. "A week after she left," he admits. "Vanessa and I weren't doing so good – she only wanted to stay in motels and I wanted….better." He pauses. "Then Serena called. She sounded – she sounded, well, bad. Like she needed me, man. So I cancelled everything and booked a ticket to Prague-"

"You bailed on _her_," Chuck says quietly. Suddenly he feels very, very sober.

"Yeah. I did," The pain and guilt in Nate's voice is evident. "Vanessa told me that if I left her again we were done for good, but Serena needed me and I – I walked away from her."

"All this time?" Chuck whispers. "All this time when we thought you were backpacking with the little Brooklynite, you were with Serena? In _Prague_? When Blair was worried and upset over Serena leaving without a single note or goodbye, it was all fun and sun for you and her, Nate?"

"That's not fair," Nate snaps back, and Chuck knows he's hit a sensitive spot. "Carter _lied_ to Serena, okay? He got her involved in some _smuggling ring_, and Serena didn't know what to do. She was just trying to find her dad."

Chuck sneers. "Once again, Van der Woodsen gets involved in things way over her head. Once again, Nathaniel Archibald, the shining white knight rushes to the damsel in distress," he stops, letting his voice drip scorn. "Did you ever once think about Blair? That she might be waiting, panicking, anxiously, wondering where her best friend's gone to and left her all alone, _again_, even though she promised never to again? Did _Serena_ even think about Blair?"

"Serena didn't want Blair involved. She didn't want Blair-" Nate falters, and Chuck knows in his rage, he has to hit out – to lash at someone, and Nate has provided the perfect opportunity.

"Didn't want Blair to mess it up for her or scare away _Daddy Dearest_, more like." Chuck nearly explodes. The scotch glass meets the table with more force than necessary, and Chuck can feel the vibrations from the impact shivering his nerves. Not good enough.

"You don't know Serena."

"And you do, Nathaniel? We've known her as long as we've known each other. And all this time, Serena has always been the perfect child, so airy and flighty that you can't help but want to hold her down. And you've always wanted to be her tether, to be her rope to keep her grounded and you want her to _need_ you as much as you've always needed her-" At this point, Nate starts talking, but Chuck isn't interested; he's on a roll- and rambles on. "It was never Blair, was it Nate? You never once spared a thought for your girlfriend who _loved_ you and needed you just as much as Serena did. When your girlfriend's life was falling over the cliffs, you were too busy holding on to Serena, making sure you never floated away, to even offer her rope to hang on."

There's a long silence, and Chuck knows that his words – sharpened, moulded carefully into precise arrows to Nate's heart to _hurt_ – has done their job. But he's angry, and he's not sorry. He's not sorry because it's the truth – that Nate hadn't the decency or sensibility to appreciate Blair and that despite all his self-righteous preaching, he hadn't either.

"I know," Nate whispers after a while, and his voice breaks. "I _know_, okay? Chuck, you're my best friend – believe me when I say I love Blair – I just don't love her in _that way_. I'm sorry I took so long and her heart along with me to figure it out, but I have. And Serena – Serena just wants her father back. That's all." His voice crumples for real this time, and Chuck knows instinctively Nate is crying on the phone. "Because, if you look at it, Chuck, man – we all want our fathers back, don't we?"

Chuck closes his eyes, and thinks about Harold Waldorf in France with his boyfriend, Captain Archibald serving time in prison, and his own father, buried six feet under the ground. And he knows that he'll forgive Serena for what she's done to Blair – what he doesn't know, however, is whether Blair herself will.

"Yeah."

"Serena wants to meet, two o' clock on Friday on the steps of the café on Bleecker. She thinks she's got a lock on Blair."

"I'll be there." Chuck breathes.

* * *

Blair gets another message from _him_ by dinner.

She'd switched her phone off any Gossip Girl alerts in an attempt to disconnect from the high-strung life she'd lived and to fall into a regular, mundane rhythm of mingling with Wal-Mart shoppers and worn loafers and jeans. (Of course, that doesn't mean that _she_ dresses like them, but it gives her a sense of satisfaction that Forks is making her less elitist.) She tries not to think about the Upper East Side as much as she can – it's just a couple more days before she returns to the Bitch Zone of Prada stilettos and Gucci-toting pretentiousness anyway.

So she stows away the Gossip Girl alerts, and pretends not to notice the frequent alerts cropping up on the Gossip Girl website (her homepage).

_C spotted with another girl_. Check_. C making out with another girl_. Check_. C inviting a girl to his suite at the Plaza. C inviting two girls to his suite. C bringing home a whole harem of scantily-clad, giggling girls with way too much plastic surgery. _

And of course, all of the scandalous photos came equipped with the dread Gossip Girl coverage and her goddamn ever-so-snide comments.

_Well, well. Has resident womaniser C gotten over first love B, so soon? Well, that's a record for the books – or the sheets. _

Blair knows –she doesn't need the goddamn input from Gossip Girl and the whole UES attempting to understand their relationship - it was his own way of telling her, _Come back. I need you_. It'd been a special focal point of their relationship – they know each other so well that they know what the other is thinking. Chuck wants her to fight for him, to show that she feels _something_. And Blair does. She feels, she's unbelievably jealous to the point she wants to ruin those girls for life, _ruin him for life_. She wants to slap him silly and kiss him even sillier and fall into his satin sheets with her hands in his hair and apologies left to be nothing but a thing of the past. She wants to stake her claim on him, if only for her to be the one to destroy him _and make him beg_. She's unbelievably pissed, and yet she hurts and aches down deep inside because she knows no matter how hard she's tried to bury him under the busy dazzle of Edward Cullen and ruling of Forks High School, he's still under her skin.

She feels for him, strongly enough to fight back.

But she doesn't. Somehow, her hands (perfectly manicured in pink) stay folded in her lap, smoothing down her floral dress and readjusting her flowery headband, but they don't _move_. Perhaps these hands are just too afraid of being scraped and bruised and callused in the impending struggle to follow. Maybe these hands are tired of fighting and clawing and scratching their way to the top. It's as though her hands have already accepted what her brain refuses to believe – _they're over_.

And of course, her phone beeps. Blair has two phones, and she hasn't given anyone in Forks _that_ phone number.

The message is simple.

_Please, Blair?_

And it's so heartbreaking the way she can almost imagine him, dark eyes begging and pleading when they know they've wandered too far, his hair unusually dishevelled like he's run his hands there too many times. She can imagine his voice, even, the soft purr left gravelly with the alcohol and cigarette he most probably consumed, and yet _still_ managing to make her weak in the knees.

Blair closes her eyes and pictures his voice, and with as much determination she can muster she pins the words _dirty, cheating bastard_ to the beautiful brooding face, shoves it to the back of her mind, and thinks about something else instead. The fall collection of Vera Wang, perhaps, and those pretty new Miu Mius that would've been stocked in Bergdorf's by now. The simple, mundane, materialistic world Blair lives in that helps her connect to her shallow bitch and forget about the deep, trying matters of the world.

For the first time, this doesn't work.

Blair hums to herself and thinks of Edward Cullen instead.

He's a brooding mystery and Blair can't help but feel _intrigued_ by him. Flawlessly perfect, except something about him made him burn hotter and freeze colder than anything she's ever experienced. Modest, to the point of being so insufferably _arrogant_ about his modesty. A teasing smirk that somehow ridicules her and compliments her at the same time and threads so thin a line Blair just doesn't know what to believe. The slight soft dimple on his right cheek that seems to contrast so greatly against the hard, angular planes of his cheekbones. He is mystery and an annoyance bundled up into one big package of man.

And what a fine package it was.

Blair blinks, conscious of her distinctly _lecherous _thoughts, and decides she needs a strong drink right about now. She's sick of drinking the same wine in her cellar and she's _sick_ of getting drunk in her summer house and she's _sick_ of passing out on her recliner only to wake up _alone_. Blair doesn't do one night stands, but she's hormonally imbalanced (her period's coming) and she's lovelorn and being horny just thinking about Edward Cullen does not help matters.

Blair walks.

She's aware this is probably one of the few times she's ever hiked with the primary intent of _hiking_ (there was that one time on a date with some poofy English Lord but her mind gets fuzzy on the small details). But she's in a mood to be awed speechless and the clearing is just about the right place to do the _awe-ing_ and for the first time it's sunny in Forks and the clearing is sure to be marvellous so Blair grabs her camera and walks there anyway.

She is not, in any way whatsoever, hoping to meet Edward Cullen there.

She doesn't meet him, but she meets someone even better. Arriving in a package of wiry black hair and pale skin and wide eyes with a look too permanently startled to be considered pretty.

_Bella Swan_? _I'm Blair._

_Blair Waldorf._

Blair smiles.

* * *

Bella Swan is a walking magnet for disaster; that she knows. She's faced insurmountable danger over the past few years – almost being raped, almost getting knocked down by a truck, kissing a vampire that would forever be more tempted to suck her dry than to kiss her silly, almost getting killed by another vampire, almost being turned into a vampire, almost getting killed by a coven of vampires, almost getting killed by the first vampire's lover (there _was_ this unhealthy relationship between her and vampires).

Despite that, Bella is unprepared to deal with the likes of Blair Waldorf.

She's gorgeous, poised and confident, a polar opposite from herself – a bumbling, ordinary creature. Bella idly wonders if Blair is a vampire too – it _would_ explain the drop-dead looks, a smug arch of the eyebrow as though _she knows something Bella doesn't_, and the rather predatory gleam in those large chocolate orbs. She doesn't dazzle like the Cullens do, but there's _something_ about her, form the proud tilt of her head right down to her perfectly manicured feet strapped to heels that looked expensive, that made her somehow _more_, and yet _less_ than that of a vampire.

But her boyfriend beside her doesn't growl like he would have done to any other vampire, and instead straightens up and looks at the arrival somewhat warily, but with no animosity. Blair had to be human, then. A breathtakingly beautiful human.

"You must be Bella Swan." The voice is clipped but with a certain evasive _coyness_ in them, and her head tilts elegantly to a side, her chin tilted upwards, a grin on ruby lips parting to reveal perfectly straight teeth (Bella breathes a sigh of relief that the canines are not pointed). As dazzling the smile might be, it doesn't quite touch her regal-looking eyes. "I'm _Blair_, Blair Waldorf."

Bella smiles, although twitching her facial muscles to form one seems distinctly _false; _she agitatedly shuffles her feet back and forth. It doesn't matter that Jacob is here, right beside her, large hands placed protectively on her shoulders – next to Blair Waldorf her insecurities return and she has never felt so _average_ before. Her pale, translucent skin looked sickly next to Blair's pale, yet faintly glowing porcelain skin. Her hair stringy and unnaturally dry compared to Blair's dark, lush locks. Her hips do stick out quite a bit…

Jacob squeezes her hand almost as if _he's_ the boyfriend with a tendency to read minds, and Bella flashes him a quick look of gratitude.

Bella thinks of herself as pretty strong and independent. She's not one to fawn over popular girls or celebrities or to pine about the things she doesn't have- she's generally clueless about things like that – but for the first time, she feels a flash of envy at the confident way Blair glances, half-demurely and half-proudly, effortlessly the way she's only ever seen on screen, and she can't help wondering why the _hell_ Jacob was still standing there holding her hand when she was pretty sure, in all fairness, he deserved to be with someone like _her_-

"So, you're from the school on the reserve?" Blair asks, her finely trimmed eyebrow arching up in a mixture of amusement and boredom.

Bella nods cautiously. "Well, yeah I did transfer to La Push – I used to go to – well, it was really because-" she sounded like a blathering idiot. Clearing her throat, she tries not to stare at Blair's intense gaze and glances at the pretty flowers about the meadow instead. "Yes, I transferred out early this year."

"Pity," Blair muses. "We'd have been _great_ friends. I'm studying in the school in Forks – for the moment, anyway." A corner of the red lips curl upward temporarily in a smirk.

"Oh?" God, she sounded stupid.

Bella winces.

"I took the nearest flight out of New York. Mother wasn't quite pleased with me and she grounded me here in this peasant town." Her voice is distinctly snooty, and Bella catches a flurry of undistinguishable emotions flit over her porcelain features as she taps a long finger on her mouth in thought, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

"Well-" Bella falters, because as much as she dislikes Forks' weather she feels she _does_ owe it to Jacob – who is gripping her hand rather tightly – to defend it. "I wouldn't call it _peasant_. You get used to it. I think it's rather quaint, actually."

Blair sighs breathily, and Bella sees her flick an appraising glance at Jacob. "_Quaint_?" she says in an agreeable tone, although her eyes are clearly displaying disbelief and disinterest at the same time. "Oh, I suppose."

Jacob clears his throat as if to disagree and this sudden noise gives Blair the opportunity to cock her head and glance at him as if seeing him for the first time. Bella blushes furiously, because it is only then she realizes Jacob has been excluded in this conversation – an irrational part of her disliked Jacob talking to someone as pretty as Blair. But she pushes those thoughts aside, clears her throat and says too-brightly, "I forget to mention," she says as breezily as she can, trying to keep the guilt out of her voice, "this is my boyfriend, Jacob. Jacob Black."

"Nice to meet you," Blair allows, not bothering to look away from Bella. "So, _Bella_, I'm going shopping in Port Angeles sometime later this week. I hear there are at least some _decent_ shops there – at least, some which sell clothes that I wouldn't have to put on a paper bag over my head should I ever wear them."

Bella opens her mouth – she's supposed to hang with Jacob and his pack this weekend – but Blair cuts past her ruthlessly.

"I'll take you up as my little charity case. Where'd you get that fabric from, a convenience store?" Blair sniffed. "And your scarf - you can see it from space."

Bella instinctively fingered her scarf – what was so wrong about it? She _liked_ her scarf.

"Come on, I'm feeling charitable," Blair smirks, as though she senses Bella's insecurity. "I'll get you some decent clothes. Trust me, this advice is priceless. I don't dispense fashion advice to just about _anyone_. Ask Jessica, she's been trying to get me to tell her if her new cardigan makes her look like a gray Hulk. Well, she looks more of a rhinoceros, but I'm not going to tell her that." She flipped her hair back and her eyebrow arched a fraction higher. "So?"

Bella shakes her head. The thought of being welcomed by someone so obviously rich and popular _is_ _tempting…_ "Blair, I'm really sorry. I really, really wish I could but I've already made plans with Jacob this weekend."

"Go."

"What?" Bella turns around, utterly bewildered by the change in Jacob's demeanour. His face isn't as disapproving or clenched as she thought it'd be. They'd been planning this meeting with the pack for _weeks_, and Bella did want to see them, she really did. Besides, despite Blair's glamour she _did_ disconcert her a little bit.

"Go," Jacob says and there's a small smile at the corner of his mouth as he gives her a playful push. "You need more friends, Bella – girlfriends especially. Besides, Blair is only staying for a while, and I'm not going to leave anytime soon." He shrugs. "We can reschedule."

"Are – are you sure?" Bella worries. She isn't quite sure if she's prepared to go on this trip with Blair – she was kind of scary.

Jacob turns to Blair instead. "Take good care of her?" he offers.

Blair scoffs. "What is this, the _Brady Brunch_?" Jacob doesn't back down, and Blair rolls her eyes in exasperation. "Well, I don't doubt her safety is pretty much guaranteed in a town less than a day's drive from here, but if anything happens I have my lawyer on speed dial. And my dad can sue anybody's ass into next week."

Jacob offers a ghost of a smirk, but nods. "All right."

There's an awkward silence as the three of them wait for the other to leave this meadow first, that the latter can enjoy the beauty of it in peace. Bella feels distinctly awkward and selfish – it is the meadow _she _shares with _Jacob_, after all, and she cannot help but feel as if their date is being intruded upon. Blair blinks and she opens her mouth as if to ask something, but she closes it. She seems immune to the tension, her eyes instead focused on raking the meadow.

"Looking for someone?" Jacob asks archly.

Blair's eyes blaze and brown curls fly as she whips her head around and Bella finds herself shrinking again at the scary side of Blair Waldorf, as the temporary truce is faulted into smithereens, hoping with all her might that Blair doesn't respond with a blisteringly acid retort –

"Blair?"

Blair turns, distracted as the insult dies off her lips. Bella turns as well, and Jacob follows in a sinisterly alike representation of a domino of human heads, and they all freeze in the middle of the meadow as the gold eyes of Edward Cullen find theirs, looking utterly bewildered. A long silence passes over them, as the sun arches the sky overhead and everything starts to darken. They each stare at the other in turn, opening their mouths to say something but closing them wordlessly, hands folded defensively in their pockets.

"Well, _this_ is awkward." Jacob mutters.

* * *

Blair really, really wants a cigarette right now.

She's never really gotten into the habit of smoking like Chuck or Georgina or Serena in her wild days, or even _Nate_. The fact that the small little tube could blacken her teeth in the future and leave her a toothless, wrinkled ugly old woman disgusted her to no end. But it's precisely in times like these Blair wishes for the rolled up cigarette to be stuck between her two front teeth and lighted, so Blair can just inhale the smoke and life can just _stop_, even for just that singular minute.

No such luck – her only packet of cigarettes is in New York, a few thousand miles away. And she honestly as heck didn't know where the nearest convenience store was. _(Did Forks even have a convenience store?)_

Bella isn't what she expects. She'd expected someone ridiculously beautiful, a Serena-_esque_ doll that would be equally ridiculously intelligent and multi-talented and effortlessly perfect just as Edward was. Not some….not some average, sickly looking girl that was too pale and skinny for her own good. She looked _awkward_. Well, just as awkward as the bronzed hot guy with dark hair and soulful eyes and large hands (a pity he had such a smart mouth) as he gaped with a confused look (mirroring his girlfriend's) at their one-sided conversation, anyway.

All in all, Bella Swan certainly isn't the epitome of perfection that everyone had made her out to be. Well, at least, not looking like _that_. And that _cardigan_ was more awful than the many monstrosities hidden and probably spawning away in Penelope's closet…

How had Edward Cullen fallen for _that_?

Beside her, Edward growls audibly.

* * *

The tension thickens until the point where Blair can't stand it anymore. She's ruled the Upper East Side and held the Bitch Court for as long as she can remember, but right now she knows there's something brewing deeper in this love triangle and Blair doesn't as hell want any part of it. The way Jacob's hair catches in the sun and is holding Bella protectively, the way Bella is glancing uncertainly between the two men and how there is just the _faintest_ tinge of regret and desire, and how Edward's face is unreadable like always reminds her of a situation in the past she'd rather forget. A situation ,where Blair too had a white knight and a not-so-white knight competing for her attentions while she wavered in her indecision, before the situation got so blown out of proportion and became a bloody fucking mess.

Blair really needs a cigarette.

Blinking, she lets out a long, exaggerated sigh, which dispels some of the attention and breaks off the trance the three of them are in. Bella blinks as her head slowly swivels toward Blair.

"I'm _going_," Blair enunciates clearly, her voice slipping into authoritative, a tone in which she is already accustomed to. "Bella, see you Friday?"

"Uh, yeah. Um, sure."

"_Friday_?" Edward questions, and there is a dark look on his face and a promise of a threat in his snarl.

"Nice meeting you," Blair says in faux sweetness to Bella. She can sense Edward's anger rising and she smiles brilliantly at _Jacob_, and she spins on her heel and strides out of the meadow without looking once in Edward's direction. 

She's leaving because she simply cannot be recognised as a witness on a possible murder scene, she tells herself. Whatever would it do for the Waldorf name? She would have to call Daddy, and he wouldn't be pleased.

Blair bites hard on her lips as she firmly refuses to acknowledge the brief pang of jealousy at the way Edward Cullen looked at Bella Swan.

* * *

A/N All right, so I've updated after a long, long break. I must say I'm not quite happy the way this chapter turned out, because what was meant to be a short, livejournal-esque fic turned into a story of its own. But I'm going to end it soon, so expect an ending within three chapters at the most? I've got a vague outline for the next chapter, but I definitely want to put in some Edward, some of Blair prying secrets out of Bella, and maybe some NJBC if I can squeeze them in.

Anyway, for those people who might have a problem with my characterisation of Bella, I might as well start explaining now. To me, Bella is just another Mary Sue. Not offense to Bella lovers, but I didn't know quite how to write her because she was just so _plain_. I do recognize that she is very uncertain about herself, and she does have a little self-esteem issues and like it or not, she is still dazzled by Edward Cullen, and perhaps by Blair Waldorf, because she may see Blair as everything she isn't and all that she wants to be (especially admiring her confidence).

Anyway I'd love to hear what you thought, read and review!!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N Hey guys, I'm really, really sorry for the long wait. It's been a rough ride this year, and I didn't do so good on my EOYS and you can say my parents aren't pleased about it. Next year's the big tests so I'll definitely be working my ass off even more. I just wanted to say thanks to all those people who put it on Story Alert, or Author Alert or God bless you, Favorite Stories and whatnots. And of course, a big thank you to those who reviewed - I really do appreciate it so much and it means a lot that you guys are still willing to wait when I slowly churn out a new chapter. I rushed to finish this, so like before, I _might_ add in a new section later on; I'm not sure. Anyway, if you have any concerns regarding the characterisations drop me a review or a message and I'll try to explain my twisted logic in it. Read and Review!

* * *

_She says head case head case  
Turn that thing around  
Let's play a game when you hear me make a sound  
Just go quite a bit faster  
Pretend that I'm gagged and bound  
Oh how I love to hear that sound  
Milkshake milkshake I love to feel you sweat  
We don't have to go to the pool  
If you want me to make you wet  
Can you keep a secret  
Because the best little secrets are kept_

_And you're my best little secret yet_

- Pledge of Allegiance, Louis XIV

* * *

Chapter 4

"Are you _sure_ this place is appropriate for a meeting like this, van der Woodsen?"

"Well, what suggestions do you have, Bass? A strip club?"

"Well, I must say that option is more…enjoyable to this cosy little _diner_. What is it, a family restaurant?"

Serena van der Woodsen huffs a little at the derogatory tone in his sneer and folds her arms across her chest, glaring a challenge to her brother (was that what he was? She could never get used to the idea of them ever being _related_). She doesn't know quite what to call him – she definitely only had _one_ brother Eric, but brother-in-law seemed to suggest him being married to a sister which she definitely wasn't aware of. He _was_ her brother by marriage, though – just by their parents' marriage.

Said brother smirks the patented Bass smirk at her, infuriating her even more.

_Good to know he still hasn't changed the slightest bit._ Serena muses to herself as she heaps sugar into her iced tea, with a sliced lemon on the side. She distractedly notices how she is in dire need of a manicure, her nail polished chipped and nail wearied down to her fingers by her teeth.

She'd got home just yesterday, with Nate, and had hit the showers and then the bed. She hasn't even said hi to Dan yet – she'd flown home straight as soon as she heard that Blair was missing. Guilt stirs in her – she knew Blair, wherever she was, hated her right now. Hell, she was probably throwing diamond-encrusted darts at her picture now. And Serena does understand, really. She'd regretted not telling Blair the minute she'd let Carter lead her off to the airport with her bag tucked under his arm and his lips on hers and his hands in her back pockets. But even when Carter had proven himself a bastard and left, Serena still didn't call Blair. She'd called Nate instead. And she knew Blair would probably never forgive _that_.

Sipping her tea, Serena glances about the room. They should have chosen a better location, she admits. The café is packed with the poorer Upper East Siders (an oxymoron?), because most Upper East Siders – at least the one she knows anyway – would be having their catered Sunday brunch with gourmet food and silver plates and socializing.

Two little Sacred Heart girls in their cute red and white checked pinafores walk an enormous black (pedigree) Rottweiler past the diner. They press their cheek to the glass as they pass, cupping their faces to peer into the café and giggle flirtatiously at Chuck. Chuck raises his glass of wine – Serena is surprised it's not his usual scotch – and leers at them, causing them to shriek and run away delightedly in mock horror, the Rottweiler dragging behind them howling angrily in protest.

Serena rolls her eyes. "Still lusting over underage girls, Bass? And where's the afternoon scotch?"

Chuck glances at her. "I don't drink scotch anymore. It's not worth it." As if to prove his point, he takes a lingering, slow sip from his wine glass, eyes closed. "Where's Archibald?"

"Here," Nate Archibald announces as he arrives at that moment, dropping into his seat and his hand rubbing his face wearily. "Grandfather wanted to introduce me to an associate." He glances at them, and his eyes locks on Serena's for longer than necessary.

Serena tears her gaze away from his hazel eyes and forces herself to look down, where her delicate hands are clenched and long fingers knotted about the tablecloth on her end.

Chuck notices it anyway. "Granderbilt still giving you problems, eh, Archibald?"

"You have no idea," Nate grunts and Chuck glimpses a flash of desire and guilt in his voice as he slowly turns from Serena to glance at Chuck. "He's still dropping hints that it's not too late for me to go to Harvard if I change my mind. Apparently he 'knows' some people on the top. And he mentioned he has a friend, whose daughter is my age and apparently gorgeous and smart and _single_, and of course, totally into the Archibald name. Well, he didn't exactly say that part out loud, but-"

"Well," Serena interrupts, a bit too hastily and her voice pitched a bit too high for her intention to be genuine. "We'd better get down to business."

Chuck sobers up and pushes the disturbing image of his _sister_ (not that he ever had one, or even _wants_ to refer to Serena was one, but still) and his best friend out of his mind. He can deal with that later, as long as Blair was here to deal with it with him. Personally, he couldn't care less, but he knows Blair would have an entirely different opinion.

"I've trying to get a lock on Blair's location for _days._ With the help of a professionally trained P.I for chrissakes. However did you manage to get the location so fast? Did the nice little Pragueists help you with that one, van der Woodsen?" he jibes.

"Technically, it's Czech." Nate offers feebly.

Both Serena and Chuck ignore him.

Serena flips her blond halo of hair over her head and shoots Chuck a defiant stare. "Well, what can I say? I'm extremely _persuasive_."

Out of the corner of his eye, Chuck sees Nate nodding a bit too fervently, before he catches himself doing it and stops. Chuck smirks, a little too slightly, before narrowing his eyes and returning to the staredown with Serena. "What did Dorota tell you, Serena?"

Serena sighs. "Fine. I went to ask Dorota – _nicely_," she adds, just as Chuck opens his mouth to interrupt. "She doesn't take kindly to certain ex-boyfriends of her employer's daughter attempting to bribe her, blackmail her, to threaten her, and when all else fails, God help me, attempts to _seduce_ out of her information that Blair entrusted to her before she jetsetted off."

"You _seduced _Dorota?" Nate asks, brown eyes wide with a palette of horror, disbelief and amusement.

"Tried to," Chuck corrects immediately, although he _does_ shiver at the recollection of it. He _had_ been rather desperate at that time. "Turns out she's not very partial to handsome, young billionaires with agency to choose from a million other girls throwing themselves at him."

Serena snorts.

Nate chokes on his tea.

"She's somewhere around the state of Washington," Serena announces, and Chuck's eyes snap to her. "Some town…Forks? Forks, yeah, I remember now. Forks."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Nate says suddenly, and there is an excited gleam in his eyes as he stands up. "I can steal the Vanderbilt plane for a trip there. Grandfather will probably lend it to me with heartfelt blessings if I agree to a blind date with Whatsherface."

"You don't have to do that, Nate-" Serena says, but Nate shakes his head.

"No. I _have_ to do this, Serena," he says, but this time he is looking straight at Chuck, and Chuck registers this is Nate's way of making up for his actions; how he had treated Blair in the past.

"Nate, don't be stupid, your Grandfather will still kill you. Besides, you don't _have_ to do this, and listen to him all the time, you don't have to become just another Vanderbilt when you're an Archibald, _Nate_ Archibald-"

"As much as I enjoy this little romantic pep talk, I have to interrupt," Chuck sneers as he stands up loudly, sending the cheap chair crashing to the floor. Everyone in the diner now is staring at him, but Chuck ignores them. "I'm taking the Bass helicopter."

Nate blinks. "But the Bass helicopter's only a two-seater."

Chuck doesn't say anything, but watches his best friend with hooded eyes, feeling a grim satisfaction when realization dawns on Nate and his large eyes widen even more in disbelief. "What are you getting at, Chuck?" He asks, but everyone at the table sees that Nate is just acting stupid because he knows, he has known Chuck since forever and Nate probably _knows_ what Chuck wants to do, what he needs to do.

"Absolutely _not_, Chuck." Serena folds her arms across her chest. "This is my best friend you're talking about, and I do know you can't be trusted with her heart. The last time you were alone with Blair – well, she's not here anymore, is she?"

Chuck narrows his eyes at her but he can't find the words to return her spite, because deep down in his heart he knows she's right. "That's precisely why I have to be the only one, van der Woodsen. It's my fault. I have to be the one to make it up to her."

"That's stupid," Nate ejects immediately, half-rising out of his seat. "If you want to go at it that way, you might as well say it's equally Serena's fault for breaking her promise to Blair and leaving without telling her again. And it's my fault too, for leaving her for Europe and leaving her for Serena again, without telling her. And you might say I'm more to blame than you, because of all the things I did to her when we were together; or rather all the things I _didn't_ do that I never properly apologized for-"

Chuck shakes his head and his eyes glitters savagely in the light. "She didn't love you, Nate. She _loved _me."

He watches as Nate is struck dumb with the blunt snipe. His mouth opens and closes, his throat works, but he cannot deny the truth of this claim and instead he snaps his mouth shut, nods tersely and falls back into his seat in resigned concurrence with the statement. Serena is still watching, her blue eyes tense and yet alight with understanding as she shakes her head. Her voice is filled with incredulity and admiration as he turns to leave.

"You really love her, don't you?"

Chuck doesn't turn around, although her words freeze him to the spot. "Van der Woodsen, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Without another word, he leaves.

Nate is sinking lower and lower in his chair in embarrassment staring at his crème brulee. Serena is sure as hell going to be pissed about Chuck, and as much as he lov- _liked_ her as a friend he knows she has a heck of a temper. But when he finally dares to chance a peek over his dessert, Serena is staring after Chuck with a thoughtful expression on her face and a tiny, _knowing_ smirk at the edges of her perfectly-shaped lips. Nate coughs awkwardly.

"Serena – do you think he might be serious? About you know – _loving_ Blair?"

Serena turns to him, and the smile that lights up her face is so brilliant he can't help but fumble, his brain short-circuiting and he forgets his own name for a moment. "Honestly, Nate, and I thought Chuck and Blair were the only blind, oblivious idiots around here." Her laugh is soft and feminine without sounding too _giggly_, and Nate is forcibly reminded of the tinkle of Disney stars arching across space.

He thinks he might be able to listen to that laugh for forever.

* * *

Blair's had just about enough of Bella's laugh.

She's about to go fucking crazy with Bella's pale, trembly hands and wide frantic eyes and constant stuttering. And the fact that Blair has dragged Bella to about five of the most expensive stores Port Angeles could offer – shopping with an ulterior motive _is_ still shopping, after all – and the only thing Bella liked was a maroon sweatshirt from some thrift store.

Maroon.

Sweatshirt.

…_.Thrift store._

Forks was mad, the whole lot of them.

"I can't go out, Blair," Bella's muffled voice rings out from behind the door of the changing room.

Blair impatiently puffs on her cigarette and she glares hard at the door of the changing room. "For God's sake, Bella, it's only a dress."

"I can't go out." Bella's voice is panicked.

Blair rolls her eyes and sneers at the door. She huffs her cigarette impatiently and allows herself to be tempted, just for a moment, what would happen if she just dumped Bella's clothes (faded jeans and a dowdy black shirt) in the nearest bin and took off. It takes almost all of her willpower to grit her teeth and force the image out of her mind.

Why the hell had she even insisted on shopping with Bella anyway?

Edward. Edward Cullen. Oh, right. _The boy doesn't know half of the trouble he's worth. _Blair curses under her breath as she drops her cigarette and grinds it under her heel, imagining Bella's remarkably unremarkable face under it.

"Blair?!"

Blair rolls her eyes again. "I'm _coming_," she snaps at the white door. "I'll get you a new one and even if you don't like it you're going to wear it, understand?"

Blair spins on her heel and catches the mousy shop assistant by surprise, who jumps at least a foot up in the air when she catches Blair's hostile glare.

"You-" a shove of the black dress and she almost falls over with shock- "are going to help me find a nice, fashionable little black dress for my _friend_ back there. I'll be back for her soon-" she can't help but smirk a little when the assistant swallows audibly – "She better be satisfied when I get back-" she sees her little feet shake in the oversized Doc Martens and her smile widens- "Okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, Blair flips her bouncy curls and strides out of the store. She needs a goddamn breather from all the _Bella_-ness of the entire trip. In all her life shopping for clothes, she has never known shopping to be so _tedious_. And the worst part was, Bella actually seemed to be _enjoying_ herself despite Blair's snappish mood. Or was it _because_ of Blair's snappish mood?

The little twat.

Blair has to admit, she'd only asked Bella along to dig deeper about Edward Cullen, but now she's not quite sure if she wants to know the dirty on him. She's not only unprepared with having to deal with the bundle of Bella Swan that came with the package but now, she's also _afraid_. Afraid that this inquisitive, nosy nature of hers poking around and getting the sordid details might somehow _bond_ her to Forks in a way that it becomes much, much more than just one of the many bad, reckless decisions Blair has had made. That somehow, Forks might – just _might_ – evolve into something bigger than something forgettable, like a faint line in the exterior of Upper East persona Blair has had painstakingly crafted slowly emerging as a fault line.

That somehow, Blair might just see Edward Cullen than more than just a beautiful boy.

Blair's fingers start to itch and she absently draws another cigarette and lights it, smoking against the dusky sky. It's possible, she supposes. She's attracted as hell to him and he _must_ feel a little something back for her. They've both been ditched by their loser exes, even though they're both certainly good-looking enough not to stay single for long. If only he would just open his mouth and _ask_ her out. Sure, she might play a _little_ hard to get, but she would make sure her eyes sparkled and her lips twisted coyly and besides; guys liked it if a girl played hard to get.

Didn't they?

"Waldorf."

Blair turns and her cigarette falls out of her hand in surprise when she sees the familiar tussled bronze hair and alabaster skin (hidden under a drab gray hoodie with the hood up) and murderous molten gold eyes peeking out of sunglasses.

Holy shit.

Edward Cullen. The boy did seem to show up everywhere she went, didn't he?

Blair tries to ignore the pounding of her heart and sneers valiantly instead. "Stalking much, Cullen?"

His gaze doesn't waver, and she _knows_; it's not one of those little petty staring games played out between them from the different corners of the cafeteria at lunch time anymore. She's interfered (out of the box) with Edward's darling little ex-girlfriend, and he doesn't look none too happy about it. She's brought the game to a whole new level; so above the petty ones they've amused themselves playing before that Blair's not quite sure whether it's quite the same game anymore.

_Different set of rules, Waldorf,_ his eyes seem to purr as they flicker over hers and although her gaze doesn't waver as it matches his, she swallows hard.

She's brought in a whole new variable into the equation of torn hearts and sparkling meadows and summer houses and it's a problem both know neither can solve.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at, bringing Bella here?"

Blair's not quite sure she wants to play anymore.

She throws her hair back against the wind and rests against the railing to stare out at the port. It's a gorgeous day and the sun is gleaming down on the scales of blue arching against the port. She wishes, briefly, that she is halfway around the world in the Hamptons lounging on a chair in her Pucci bikini and eating grapes and laughing about boys with Serena. She cannot acknowledge that she is stuck in some port in Washington State staring at seagulls eating spilled hotdogs from the floor and two metres from a boy clothed head to toe and equipped with a baseball cap, no less.

She tries to ignore the pang of jealousy that races through her when he mentions Bella's name a second time, a little softer.

"Why the hell are you dressed up like a turkey on Thanksgiving?"

Edward doesn't even blink. "I'm allergic to the sun."

Blair fights the urge to look at him, because she knows if she looks at him once more, in the ridiculous outfit that makes him and his perfect body look like a dumpy spy out of a really bad action movie, she might just start to laugh about the bitter situation she's found herself fallen in again. Her life's so twisted from the ideal fairytale with bitter lies and more Chuck Bass than she'd care to admit; that she doesn't quite know what the happy ending might turn out to be. Edward Cullen isn't the dashing white knight to save her from the grasping clutches of social pariah and lovelorn heartbreak; they're not going to fall in love in first sight and she's not going to elope with him and live happily ever after. She's just a richer-than-average, prettier-than-average girl who's gotten her second heartbreak in the span of a few months and he's just a handsomer-than-average boy dressed in dumpy clothes.

"Where's Bella?"

"God, can you _not_ make this about Bella all the time?" Blair finally snaps. She turns her head sharply to catch his expression, but his glittering eyes are now hidden behind sunglasses too out of place with his outfit – she'd have expected monocles instead. A more Colonel Mustard getup; it would match the absurdly yellow trench coat of his.

"I care about her."

"You and every fucking guy on the street," Blair spits. "Just because she has accidents happen to her all the time and everything just revolves around her and she just _has_ to get caught up in it all and everybody- with genitalia _remotely_ resembling a male's- within a five-mile radius _has_ this compelling need to save the damsel in distress-"

She can see Edward's smooth forehead crinkle with confusion as he stares at her.

"-Blair?"

"But you know something? She's the kind that will always fall down, and she doesn't even to have to pick herself up. Because men like you _exist_ to pick girls like her up. And of course, she's _fully_ aware of her effect on men. She's stupid, not blind. All she has to do is flip her blond hair and boys like you with testosterone and an active sex drives just _drop _everything you have; everything you own; everybody who loves you just to run and-"

She's vaguely aware that she's not talking about Bella anymore, but the long-kept bitterness is finally spewing from her mouth and she finds she can't stop; _won't_ stop –

Until a pair of cold, pale lips close over her flushed, furious ones and before she knows it they're kissing. They're _kissing_.

When Blair has kissed a total of eleven men in her life, and out of the many stolen kisses and secret smiles only _three_ really matter.

Kissing Nate was like kissing a brother – without the gross implication of incest, of course. It was warm and sweet, and it made her feel safe and protected and content, but never satisfied. Kissing Chuck was fire on fire, and it was always about passion and wrestling for dominance and finding pleasure in the struggle itself. Chuck knew how to please her, of course, but he could never make her feel _safe_. It was always like trudging through a minefield in a war-torn country with him.

With Edward – it's different.

He's like a mix of Chuck and Nate – Nate's bronze hair, but his eyes (at times) are as dark as Chuck's and the look in them is equally dangerous and inviting. Kissing him is like kissing both of them at the same time. His lips are cold, Blair vaguely thinks it might be like kissing granite or glass. But strangely enough, there's a warm, fuzzy feeling snuggling in her that refuses to go away despite her attempts to shoo it out of her system. She feels like she may just fall deeper and deeper into his strong, cold arms and she moans into his mouth at the thought. For a cold kiss, she feels strangely warm all over.

She doesn't mind kissing him even though he's cold all over because Hell has probably enough fire to keep them warm for a long, long time. Dante and his Nine Circles can _go to hell_ (pun unintended) because right now, for the first time in her unravelled, disgraced life, Blair feels _content._

She doesn't feel butterflies, or some awakening Mount Vesuvius inside her that's about to erupt as high as kingdom come (Chuck _would_ have a field day with the unintended innuendos in her head, she briefly thinks) or some palpable chemistry in her heart (not her groin, but she figures that's pretty close anyway) or some little Voice whispering in her _this is the one_. For once, Blair just forgets about the chick-flicks she used to curl up in bed watching after a bad breakup watching all night, and she forgets about the little fairytale she's planned, and she forgets about how her white knight would have to have gorgeous blue eyes (she thinks she's quite partial to gold now) and curly blond hair and dimples –

She doesn't feel like what all the books say she should, but she feels like she can live in this contentment forever and that's good enough for her. Right now, Blair doesn't give a damn about fairy tales. All she wants right now - all she _needs_ right now; really – is _this_. She moans a little and throws her hands into his hair, dragging him closer, because close is just not _close_ enough for her to be with him; to _feel_ him.

Edward gives a soft growl that she can hear reverberate about his cold chest and Blair smirks a little into the kiss because it's pleasing to know he wants her just about as much as she wants him; and she's melted that ice cold sculpture for him to respond this way to _her_ –

"Hey Blair, I just wanted to say the dress you picked for me was beautiful, but I can't wear it out without looking like a potato in a sack so – _oh my God_!"

Edward is already pulling back, but as his lips graze her ear so briefly Blair thinks it just might've been a trick on her already overloaded senses, she hears a hiss, "Five o'clock." And she can't help nodding numbly and shivering as his equally cold breath breeze past her ear. And then he's untangled himself from her arms and drawing back into his trench coat, his eyes hooded and impenetrable.

And Bella is still hyperventilating on the sidewalk. "I – you – her – _Edward_, what's going on?"

"Nothing," Edward says coolly, fixing his gaze on her that doesn't quite promise love and undying devotion (the way Blair prefers) but makes Blair heat up all over again anyway. "See you, Blair. Bella." He turns and walks away, the ridiculously large coat almost knocking a short man over.

Blair watches him until he's out of sight, and turns to Bella, looking frail and thoroughly shocked with her sickly face even paler and her eyes wider than possible. Blair can't help but take note the shopping bag crumpled in her tiny hands, white-fisted in her grip.

Blair smiles brightly, a bright smile poised and sharpened to perfection with years of practice.

"What do you say we hit the delis?"

* * *

_Well, well. Looks like someone isn't over their ex._

_C seen leaving on the Bass helicopter with the determination of a man on a mission. Is he looking for new kingdoms to conquer, or trying to find his runaway queen B? We all know a royal usurpation is in order. You know you love me, _

_xoxo _

_Gossip Girl. _

* * *

A/N Blair doesn't like Bella, as you can tell. Clue it in on Cullen-jealousy or just plain dislike for non-fashionistas who prefers sweatshirts over couture anyday. For those Jacob fans, _yes_, Bella does like Edward still, if only for a little bit. The girl thought Edward was the love of her life. Even if you choose a hairy wolf over him, it doesn't mean she still doesn't feel anything for him; she does. It's just that she would take Jacob if it really came down to it. It's natural that she would feel shocked (Edward was practically celibate before he met her, after all) and jealous. Don't worry, I hope to bring that jealousy in next chapter.

Kudos to those of you die-hard fans who recognised the reference to page 86 in the first novel of Gossip Girl: "_Two little Sacred Heart girls in their cute red and white checked pinafores were walking an enormous black Rottweiler_." I don't know, but I felt this urge to add it in somehow.

Read and Review!


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